Recruiting in 2025 and Beyond Discussion

[LeMoyneCuse]

Not to mention, if you think I dwell on this stuff then i don’t know what to tell you?

You certainly dwell on it here. What are you hoping to get out of it?

 

[baggerbob]

I would completely agree we have raised the floor. I am not a big fan of the recruiting sites but they are used as the standard metric.
Yes we did not get any 5 stars or top 250 players in 25 but if you look at the overall class it’s way above our past classes. If you go back and look in most years we would be lucky to get one .87, a couple .86 and few .85 and the rest below .85. This class most of the players are .88, .87 and .86. If you want to use the star rating as the metric our the 25 class is vastly improved from past years and more in line with the middle or higher to other acc schools.
Now people may continue to criticize because we are not landing multiple 4 stars or top 250 players but the overall class is far better then past classes going back 10 years or more.

And according to ESPN we are 36th ahead of Clemson for this year and their writeup applauds Fran for turning recruiting around at syracuse the last 2 years.

 

[cusefan88]

I agree with the takes here that after you get outside the top 150-200 players nationally it's a bit of a crapshoot. "3 stars" covers a wide array of talent.

What I do think is that Fran Brown is signing players that have more P5 offers compared to Dino and those players are bigger, heavier, and faster.

 

[svennyi]

Interesting thread from David Hale on impact of House Settlement on recruiting and portal. A really interesting nugget was the general consensus that portal talent is down vs 2 years ago, but the money being paid is way higher. The implication being you could have a lot of "bad deals" on your roster, low impact players making a lot of $. Interesting to see that compared with Fran's focus on high school recruiting vs portal.

(can't embed bluesky, so here is the copy paste)


David Hale
‪@adavidhalejoint.bsky.social‬

A lot of coaches are viewing prices as a : Is it wise to spend $1M on a decent-but-not-great OL w/experience or $50K on your backup who hasn't really played but has some upside? You might be better overall with option A, but the margin in $ isn't worth the incremental increase in production.

It also has driven a real understanding of something that's been obvious in NFL circles for a long time: Dead money is very dangerous. "You don't want to pay guys to be watching from the sideline," as 1 coach told me. Yes, landing big names is great -- but the key will be minimizing your mistakes.

Opinions on the portal have shifted a lot, too. Now that more teams can ante up to retain their own players, the consensus among coaches I've spoken to is talent in the portal is a lot than it was 2 years ago, while the $ for transfers has gone way . There aren't a lot of smart investments there.

Note the word "smart." This is CFB, and much of the spending is irrational. I've had coaches tell me guys they had heard awful reports on or guys who got 75 snaps last year on a good team are now getting $900K in the portal. The drive to win mixed with lots of cash = an overheated market.

 

[wfschrec]

Interesting thread from David Hale on impact of House Settlement on recruiting and portal. A really interesting nugget was the general consensus that portal talent is down vs 2 years ago, but the money being paid is way higher. The implication being you could have a lot of "bad deals" on your roster, low impact players making a lot of $. Interesting to see that compared with Fran's focus on high school recruiting vs portal.

(can't embed bluesky, so here is the copy paste)

David Hale
‪@adavidhalejoint.bsky.social‬

A lot of coaches are viewing prices as a : Is it wise to spend $1M on a decent-but-not-great OL w/experience or $50K on your backup who hasn't really played but has some upside? You might be better overall with option A, but the margin in $ isn't worth the incremental increase in production.

It also has driven a real understanding of something that's been obvious in NFL circles for a long time: Dead money is very dangerous. "You don't want to pay guys to be watching from the sideline," as 1 coach told me. Yes, landing big names is great -- but the key will be minimizing your mistakes.

Opinions on the portal have shifted a lot, too. Now that more teams can ante up to retain their own players, the consensus among coaches I've spoken to is talent in the portal is a lot than it was 2 years ago, while the $ for transfers has gone way . There aren't a lot of smart investments there.

Note the word "smart." This is CFB, and much of the spending is irrational. I've had coaches tell me guys they had heard awful reports on or guys who got 75 snaps last year on a good team are now getting $900K in the portal. The drive to win mixed with lots of cash = an overheated market.

It’s common sense … well for most anyway.